Page 57 of Ravaged and Ruined
All eyes flick to me. Even Grizzly freezes, waiting for my fist to fly.
I step toward Surge, slow and quiet, until we’re chest to chest.
“You wanna say that again?”
He doesn’t back down. “I said maybe if you hadn’t shoved Lacey out the door, you wouldn’t be walking around looking like you’re already halfway dead and possibly getting us killed.”
My fists twitch. Then Padre’s between us, a wall of muscle and patience I don’t have.
“Not the time,” he says. “We’ve got bodies to put down. Sort your shit later.”
“Later,” I echo, dragging my glare off Surge. My throat’s tight. My fists tighter.
He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t mean I won’t crack his fucking jaw if he pushes me again. I return to my position near the edge of the ridge, and rest my forearms on my knees.
“What do you see? I grumble to Hashtag through the comms.
“Nothing,” he answers from the tech van. “Plant’s empty. No heat signatures. No motion. No guards.”
The woods shift with the wind, thick with scrub pine, twisted oak, and tension. The kind that sits in your gut and doesn’t move. The air’s heavy with summer heat, thick enough to choke on. Sweat slides down my back, clings to my collar, and settles between my shoulder blades. Insects hum around us, a low, constant buzz that grates on already frayed nerves. Somewhere in the distance, the faint hiss of expressway traffic bleeds through the trees, normal life still rolling by while we sit out here on the edge.
My fingers tighten on the grip of my rifle. I think about the girls. What they’ve survived. What could have happened if we didn’t intervene. My stomach turns.
Then I think about Lacey. I picture her face, just for a second, lips parted like she’s about to cuss me out. Perfect. Fierce. Mine.
We wait. Forty-seven minutes of stillness. Just the hush of leaves and the sound of our own breathing in the dark.
I grit my teeth.
“Come on,” I mutter under my breath. “Show your face already.”
Because the longer we sit here, the more I unravel.
The stillness breaks with headlights. One pair first. A beat-up truck, crawling slowly along the gravel. Its engine wheezes, tires crunching loud enough to make every one of us tense. We sink lower into cover as the truck winds its way up the drive.
Grizzly shifts beside me. “That him?”
I adjust the scope, track the jittery movement behind the wheel. Narrow shoulders. Hands like a methed-out raccoon. The same coward who ran back at their clubhouse and left his brothers to die.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “It’s Cholla.”
He stops outside the rusted bay doors. The engine cuts off and the doors creak open. Cholla slithers out first. Two others follow. Bloody Scorpion cuts still clinging to their backs like it means something.
I watch Cholla pace, shoulders hunched, muttering something to the other two. He’s nervous. Real nervous. Guy’s damn near vibrating out of his skin. Just rats trying to stay alive one more night.
“Guess they’re not bikers anymore,” Crank jokes.
“Yeah,” Backdraft responds. “Because they ran like cowards and left their brothers to burn.”
I don’t laugh. I don’t even blink. Because the second wave’s rolling in.
Three black vans follow shortly after, smooth and silent across the gravel. Windows tinted so dark they could be hearses. And behind them a car. Blacker than the night around it. Expensive. Rims polished like glass. It slides into place with a kind of arrogance only money can buy.
“Got ’em,” Hashtag mutters through the comms. “Plates, faces. Sending them to a ghost box now. If we don’t make it back, these assholes’ll still burn.”
The vans stop. The doors slide open and six, maybe eight, men spill out all dressed in black. All armed, weapons at their sides but not drawn. Their movements are coordinated. Not a single wasted motion. They carry themselves like they don’t expect anything to go wrong. They don’t expect us.
The rear door of the car opens next and a man dressed in a tailored suit and black button-down shirt steps out with a cigarette between his fingers. He’s not tall, not bulky, but something about him carries weight. The way the others shift when he moves. The way he takes his time.
